The director of the Vatican-owned Bambino Gesù children’s hospital said Thursday that UK authorities are carrying on an “ideological battle” in their obstinate refusal to let little Alfie Evans be treated elsewhere, which betrays “hostility toward the Vatican hospital.”

A UK High Court judge has rejected appeals by the parents of the sick toddler Alfie Evans to fly their son to Rome for treatment, after appeals by Pope Francis and the granting of Italian citizenship to the child.

Pope Francis has asked that the Vatican-owned Bambino Gesù children’s hospital to “do everything possible” to be able to receive little Alfie Evans, the British child whom doctors are prepared to euthanize.